


Underneath it All

by ImagineYourself



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cats, Fluff, Grumpy Dean, M/M, Romance, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 14:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImagineYourself/pseuds/ImagineYourself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a witch hunt gone wrong, Dean is cursed. He's been turned into something... different and possibly adorable and the group has to figure out a way to turn him back before it gets too late. But he's starting to like being different, especially around his favorite angel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underneath it All

Dean blinked his eyes open, gazing languidly around the room. He was on the floor and everything seemed large and strangely out of focus until he blinked a few more times. Everything suddenly became sharp and defined; he could see the dust particles in the sunshine that fell through the window onto the floor next to him, warming the pile of clothes that he was snuggled in. He yawned widely, stretching out his jaw and hefted himself to his feet, surprised when that meant he was on all fours and his head barely a foot from the ground.

“Dean?” he heard Castiel’s gentle voice loud in his ears and he turned to find himself face to face with huge blue eyes. Dean yelped in surprise, jumping back and landing on all fours again. Glancing down, he tried to figure out what was wrong with his body. Lifting a forearm into his line of sight, Dean’s eyes grew wide and his breath caught in his chest.

He was a cat.

Dean flexed his paw and saw the sharp claws extend and retract before he set his paw back down and glanced over his shoulder, surprising himself with how flexible he was, to look at the rest of his body.

Yep. Definitely a cat.

He was coated with sandy colored fur that matched his hair color and looked sleek and soft. Feeling his ears laying back against his head, Dean looked back at Cas, who looked like a giant and was staring at him with a shocked expression.

“What the fuck happened?” he tried to ask, but all that came out of his mouth was a drawn out meow. He brought up his paw and rubbed it over his face, trying to get Cas to read his mind, which Cas did after a moment, realizing what Dean was doing.

“Dude, what the fuck is this?”

“I… I think that witch cursed you before he died,” the angel replied, sitting up straighter from where he’d been kneeling next to Dean and glancing around. The witch’s body was over on the side of the room and Dean remembered storming in, unprepared, with only a powerless angel and a few knives. It took a while, but they’d managed to kill the witch, but apparently not quite fast enough.

Dean stretched out his legs, trying to get used to being in a different body, which was definitely a lot easier said than done. “Can you fix me?” Cas shook his head in reply. “Damn it! Maybe Bobby will know something… Shit how are we going to get back? I can’t drive…”

“I can drive. I’ve seen you do it enough. It can’t be that hard,” Cas tried to say.

“No, no, no!” Dean retorted in his mind, a hiss escaping through his lips. “We’re two states over from Bobby and there’s no way you can drive that much. Or even drive at all!”

Cas glared at him. “What can you do to stop me?” A tiny smirk played on his mouth as Dean’s eyes widened.

“Damn it, Cas! I’m not gonna let you drive my baby!”

Without another word, Cas gathered Dean’s clothes, presumably having fallen off in his transformation, and picked up Dean himself, holding him tight against his chest like a baby. Dean meowed loudly in protest and tried to squirm away, but the angel’s tight grip made that impossible. Leaving the witch’s dead body behind, they went out into the night, back to the Impala which had been parked just down the street.

Cas waited until he was safely in the driver’s seat before dumping Dean unceremoniously on the passenger side and tossing his clothes into the backseat, but not before taking the keys from the pocket of Dean’s jeans. Dean watched as he stuck the key in the ignition and started the car, but as he was about to pull the gear out of park, Dean leaned over and stabbed his claws into Cas’ leg, making the angel jump.

“What was that for?” he asked with a glare in Dean’s direction.

“You have to hold down the brake to shift you idiot.”

Cas stepped down on the brake and pulled the car into drive, leaving the house behind in a surprisingly normal manner. He really had been paying attention. For the most part.

“I’m going to need you to tell me directions, Dean, because I don’t know where we are going.”

Dean did the cat equivalent to a sigh and pointed Cas in the right direction, getting him on the interstate and telling him to just keep driving until he reached a certain point. During the first half of the long drive, Dean was kept awake with worry about his baby’s safety, praying that Cas wouldn’t crash it. But the angel proved to be pretty good at driving and after a while, Dean curled up on the seat, finally understanding how cats could find it so comfortable to fold themselves into tiny bundles of fur.

xxxx

He woke a few hours later when the car stopped and Cas went around to the passenger side, gently picking up Dean and holding him to his chest like he’d done before. Without realizing it, Dean realized he was purring, but he was too sleepy to care. The setting sun was bright in his heavy eyes so Dean just closed them, letting Cas carry him.

“Hey, Cas. Why do you have a cat? And where’s Dean?” he heard his brother say a few minutes later after they’d entered what was most likely Bobby’s house. He felt a faint surprise that Cas had gotten them there perfectly and safely. Slowly, he was starting to wake up, but for some reason he liked being so close to Cas and having the angel’s hands holding onto him that he decided it would be fine to just stay there quietly for a while and let Cas explain. Not that he could’ve said anything anyway.

“The witch cursed Dean just before he died and Dean turned into a cat,” Cas said quietly, something that Dean appreciated since all of his senses were heightened in cat form and Sam’s voice alone had been pretty jarring.

Dean’s ears flicked as Bobby entered the room, the tires of his wheelchair squeaking. “What the hell?” he muttered gruffly. Lazily blinking one eye open, Dean observed both his brother and Bobby staring at him in disbelief. He opened his jaws wide in a yawn and watched them, still content to be in Cas’ warm grasp. But when Sam tried to reach out and touch him, Dean stretched out a paw, swatting away the gigantor’s fingers with a hiss.

“Yep, that’s definitely Dean,” the tall hunter said. Cas laughed quietly. “But, how did you get back here?”

“I drove,” Cas replied.

“Seriously? Dean let you?” He glanced at Dean, who narrowed his eyes in a glare, the tip of his tail flicking in growing frustration. Only Cas’ hands, slowly rubbing circles into his fur, kept him in place and not jumping out to claw his brother.

“He was against it at first, but in the end he knew there was no other way.” Dean looked up at the angel, who suddenly turned down his face to look at Dean and their eyes met for a moment. “By the way, he says you should—” Cas paused and furrowed his brow, glancing at Dean again before continuing. “—you should get your ass in gear and find a way to get him back in his own skin.”

Sam chuckled. “Sure, Dean. Though, you’re pretty cute as a cat. Maybe you should stay like this for a while—” he broke off with a yelp as Dean launched himself from Cas’ arms and onto the floor, digging his claws painfully into Sam’s leg and hissing again before slinking off into the kitchen.

Cas followed a moment later, grabbing a bowl from the cupboard and filling it with water without Dean even having to consciously ask. The hunter jumped up onto the counter, gratefully lapping up the water from where Cas placed the bowl. It was odd, he was already used to having a different body, and just drinking like a cat seemed just normal for Dean, though if he was in human form he would have scoffed at the idea of ever drinking like that.

When he was done, Cas took the bowl to wash in the sink and Dean watched him for a moment before stepping closer, balancing on the edge of the counter to rub his head gently into Cas’ arm. He could feel a rumbling in his chest, but he didn’t think anything of it until Cas smiled at him and Sam entered the kitchen.

“Dean, what are you doing?” his brother asked, half-laughing. Dean physically jumped back, suddenly realizing that he’d actually been nuzzling the angel and almost feeling appalled by it. He quickly leaped off the counter and returned to the main room where Bobby was sitting at his desk, pouring a drink. Dean looked longingly at the bottle and the old hunter eyed him.

“I really don’t think cats should be drinkin’, Dean,” he said dubiously. Dean growled slightly and shook his head, tail whipping back and forth across the floor where he was sitting. Already he was sick of being a cat. The only nice thing was when he jumped up the arm of the couch and sat, paws folded into his chest, and Cas came to sit beside him, rubbing his fur down the length of his body once.

“I now understand why cats act like such pricks just to get attention,” he mused to himself. But he knew Cas had heard when the angel did it again, scratching the short fur on top of his head, too.

“Maybe you should just stay like that if you like Cas petting you so much,” Sam told him, coming into the room and heading to the bookshelf to glance through the titles and see if there was anything that could help reverse the spell. Dean flattened his ears and lashed his tail a few times until Cas’ warm hand calmed him by resting on his back.

“He says you should shut it before he shuts it for you,” Cas told Sam, relaying Dean’s thoughts, though in a much cleaner manner. The younger Winchester grinned over his shoulder to his cat of a brother and didn’t say anything else.

They all sat around researching, that is, Sam and Bobby sat around researching about the spell but they came up with little more than nothing and decided to call it a night at one a.m. Sam took the spare room upstairs and Bobby kicked Cas and Dean out of the study so that he could sleep downstairs and told Cas he could sleep in Bobby’s own room.

After spending a fair amount of his power recently, Cas had been trailing along with the boys, waiting until he could continue his search for God. He was slowly becoming less human as his grace returned, no longer having to eat food, but still needing sleep, so he gratefully took Bobby’s grumbled offer and picked up a sleepy Dean, heading upstairs.

Dean hadn’t eaten all day, but he was too tired to feel hungry, and even sitting on the arm of the couch he’d dozed on and off. Maybe it was the new body that was making him tired, he didn’t know, but he was eternally grateful when Cas set him down on one side of the bed while he himself took the other side. They were both asleep quickly, Dean listening to Castiel’s breathing and the angel listening to Dean’s steady purring.

xxxx

The next morning, Dean woke to Cas’ hand stroking his back where he lay curled up next to the angel’s head. He didn’t know what it was, maybe the fact that Cas liked cats, or the fact that Dean liked the loving way that Cas would pet him, or maybe just that he was a cat and was taking advantage of the pleasures of being a cat, but Dean liked it.

And that thought alone scared him.

“You won’t be like this for long,” Cas told him in a whisper, sadness creeping into his voice which Dean found strange. “I do like cats. But I like you, Dean.”

Dean’s ears perked up at that and he lifted his head to look into Cas’ eyes. “Was that a confession?”

Cas blinked. “I suppose?” he answered vaguely.

“I like you too, Cas,” Dean thought at him, not sure where the words were coming from, but knowing they were true just the same.  It was weird. He didn’t feel like himself. Half of him still thought of Cas as, well, Cas, the angel who was becoming his best friend, and half of him thought of Cas as… something different. Something more akin to an owner.

And that thought alone scared him even more.

“Calm down, Dean. Maybe it’s just the effects of the spell,” Cas cooed to him, listening to every thought in the cat’s head and also starting to realize that maybe the spell was more than just transforming him. Even immediately, he’d noticed something different in Dean. Not just the affectionate way with which he was starting to regard Cas (that had definitely never been there before, but Cas wasn’t complaining), but in the way that he’d slowly been forgetting himself. Slowly losing his memory.

He tried to keep the worry off of his face though, and concentrated only on soothing Dean. Eventually, Dean calmed, burying his face under Cas’ chin. Even so, they both knew something was changing, and it was changing fast.

xxxx

“The spell is more complicated than we thought,” Cas told the others when he finally went downstairs a while later, leaving Dean alone. “It hasn’t just caused him to transform, it’s also causing him to actually become a cat. He’s losing his memories, and himself, very quickly.”

“Shit…” Bobby mumbled from behind his desk. Sam was sitting on the couch, reading yet another spell book, but they still hadn’t found anything. “We better move fast. You wanna help?” Cas nodded. “I’ve got a stack over on the table that might have something with some good info in it.” Cas moved towards the kitchen, taking a seat and pulling the first book off the top of the pile.

He was halfway into it when Dean bounded down the stairs and sauntered into the kitchen, eyes bright and stomach grumbling. Cas smiled at him and nodded at his unspoken question, standing up to fix something the cat could eat. Dean mentally sent him an image of a burger, already beginning to forget how to word an actual question.

The angel frowned at that, shaking his head to the burger, but pondering the other meaning of the picture. Things were moving even faster than he’d thought. He mulled over that idea while he took out a can of tuna from the cupboard It was a month or so expired, but Cas figured it would still be fine, and when he put the bowl on the counter for Dean, the Winchester ate every last bit before meowing once in a motion that Cas took to mean a burp. It made him smile again until he returned to the book he’d been reading to find information.

As Cas sat at the table, Dean decided to explore a little and meandered all over the house, even looking over Bobby and Sam’s respective shoulders along his journey before they each shooed him away and he went back to Cas. The angel allowed Dean to jump up onto his lap and Dean made himself surprisingly comfortable on Cas’ legs, standing with his back against the man’s chest and watching him as he turned the pages, eyes quickly eating up the words.

After a while of just sitting there quietly, Dean curled up on Cas’ lap, paws kneading into the fabric of his dark pants and nose buried into the inside of Cas’ thigh, something he would have never ever in his wildest dreams done as a human. But being a cat, he figured he had fewer boundaries to deal with crossing, plus Cas didn’t shoo him away and just occasionally ran a hand down his body, smoothing his sandy fur.

It almost shocked Dean at how comfortable he felt around Cas, at least in that form. As a man, he still felt it a little awkward to be close with Cas, though he didn’t know why. They were friends, but sometimes it felt… different to Dean. Being a cat though had at least taught him something: that Cas would stick with him even when things got really fucking weird. That was always a plus.

The day turned slowly into night, Sam heading to town to pick up some take-out Chinese and Cas fixing another meal of tuna for Dean, which he didn’t mind at all, though he’d hated tuna as a human. He was beginning to treat his time as a human as the past. Like it didn’t really matter that much. Living as a cat was far more relaxed, and all he had to worry about was getting Cas’ attention to pet him or kiss him on the forehead which he’d done a few times when Dean had rubbed his cheek onto the angel’s scratchy chin.

Dean liked the feeling of someone warm touching his fur. He liked the rumble of a purr deep within his chest. He could sit on his own in a warm spot and purr contentedly, lulling himself to sleep with as much of a smile as a cat could achieve. He liked that whenever he needed to piss he could just go outside and not have to deal with the whole toilet process. That was a little weird, but hey, he was a cat. But later that night, when he was thinking about all the things he liked as a cat, Cas picked him up under his arms and brought Dean’s face level with his bright blue eyes.

“Dean, you have to remember that you’re a human. If you forget about that, you’ll start to lose yourself and you could end up like a cat forever. You may like it now, but do you really want to stay like this for the rest of your life?”

Dean thought for a long moment, staring into the deep abyss of Cas’ eyes. “I don’t remember… Cas, I don’t want to stay like this,” he managed to force out in a coherent thought.

“We’ll figure out how to fix it. Just try to remember as much as you can. Don’t get too comfortable being as you are.” Cas looked at him for a long moment before setting him down gently. Dean sat still for a long while where he was on Cas’ lap as the angel continued turning pages. He remembered what pages felt like in his fingers, and he remembered having opposable thumbs. Man, he missed those.

There! Something he didn’t like about being a cat! Maybe if he could just find everything he didn’t like, he wouldn’t forget as much about being human.

Burgers. That was another thing. Beer. Dean definitely liked beer. He liked having hands. He liked being able to jump around as cats did, but he also liked walking on two feet. He liked holding the curved handle of a sharp knife or the cool metal of his favorite gun. He liked tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel to loud music when he was driving the Impala. He liked the Impala. He liked laughing when Sammy did something stupid. He liked smiling at Cas on the rare occasion that the angel made a joke or did something otherwise funny. He liked squeezing his hand on Cas’ shoulder as an encouragement or when the angel did something great.

He liked Cas…

Dean looked up at the angel, staring at the ever-present stubble on his face. He liked that stubble. He liked looking at Cas; meeting his eyes when the angel suddenly appeared near him and he liked feeling Cas in the room before he could turn and hear the flutter of wings signaling his arrival. He liked seeing Cas smile. He liked… a lot of things about Cas. His loyalty, his friendship, his gentleness, even his fierceness when it came to protecting Dean. Dean didn’t like that with many people, but he liked it with Cas.

Suddenly, Dean leaned forward, nuzzling his face into Cas’ chest, not purring, not making any noise, but just liking the closeness. Cas gently ran a hand down his back a few times until he set down the book he was working on and put both arms around Dean, holding him tight, but not tight enough to squeeze him or hurt him. And Dean liked that, too.

xxxx

“I think I’ve got something. Cas, come take a look,” Sam called out around noon the next day. They’d been up all night long and Cas had eventually fallen asleep with his head on the table around five a.m., Bobby in much the same fashion an hour later. But Sam had stayed up, worry about his brother making him too jumpy to sleep and he finally had something, so it was worthwhile.

“This is the spell that the witch must have placed. It turns the victim into an animal of the caster’s choice and makes them become the animal by erasing their memories. It says it only takes a full week for the transformation to be permanent. It’s been three days so…” Sam told them all as they gathered around where he was sitting on the couch.

“What about the counter spell?” Bobby asked, trying to lean over Cas to get a better look.

“It’s right here. It needs… blood of a lamb sacrificed under a full moon, a skull of the animal that the victim was transformed into, a pinch of the sands of time, and… an angel feather.” They all glanced at Cas, who looked at each of them in turn.

“Always willing to sacrifice for the Winchesters…” he muttered under his breath. If Dean could laugh he would have at the tiny smile that Cas flashed him.

“Well, I can make a few calls and hopefully get everythin’ in order. Just need the blood and the skull. And the feather, but I’m sure our very own angel can handle that, right?” Bobby said, wheeling towards the phones and picking up his house one, already knowing just who to call.

“How can you get a feather?” Dean asked Cas, who glanced at him.

“I’ll be back,” he said in answer and turned to leave. Although Dean knew that obviously meant that Cas didn’t want anyone to follow, Dean did anyway, leaving the house behind as Cas headed for the barn across the junkyard. He tried his damnedest to keep his thoughts quiet, not wanting Cas to know he was there, even though the angel probably already did.

Dean followed him into the barn, slinking around some old junk while Cas went to stand in the middle of the empty space. There was a faded devil’s trap in the center and Cas stood directly on it, rolling his shoulder slightly.

“You may want to look away, Dean, or you’ll go blind,” Cas said quietly, knowing Dean could hear him fully well. Startled, Dean did as he was told and closed his eyes, hiding behind an old rotted tire. After a moment there was a bright flash of light that lasted only a few seconds. When it was over, Dean squinted open his eyes, then widened them as he saw that Cas was lying crumpled on the ground. He slowly moved out from his hiding place, about to investigate when there was another flash of light. Dean barely had time to shut his eyes and leap back into hiding while the light filled the room.

A few seconds after it was gone, Dean looked around again, seeing Cas still on the floor, but moving. He bounded over and nosed at the angel’s face, sniffing him. Cas slowly sat up, groaning.

“What was that?” Dean asked after a moment of trying to find words.

“I had to go into my ethereal form in order to get the feathers,” he replied, resting his head on his knees. Cas rummaged a hand over the ground beside him and picked up three shiny, black feathers. He held them out and Dean sniffed them, tasting the scent of rain and wind and… Cas. It was a smell he’d grown accustomed to over the past few days.

“You have black wings?”

Cas nodded as Dean settled beside him, wrapping his tail around his paws. He sent the angel thoughts of approval mixed with the smallest wish of seeing his wings, which Cas promptly ignored. After a while, Cas picked Dean up, holding him customarily like a baby and setting the feathers on Dean’s stomach, which he held under his paws to keep them from blowing away as they returned to the house.

“We only needed one, Cas,” Sam said to him as soon as they’d delivered the feathers.

“You may need more in the future,” was all the angel said in reply. Sam shrugged and put them with the bag that held a fair amount of sand that was sitting on Bobby’s desk next to the spell book. Sam had already taken the chance to read over the spell and make sure he had it so that it could easily be done as soon as they were ready.

“Bobby?”

Cas relayed Dean’s question to Sam and the younger Winchester shrugged. “Out front. Friend in town came by with a skull I think.”

Both the angel and the cat nodded at him, making Sam teeter on the edge of laughter, but he figured his brother would claw him for it, so he turned away. Meanwhile, Dean was looking at Cas, who seemed more tired and haggard than before.

“How much… mojo?” Dean asked, having trouble finding the right word he wanted to use.

“Too much,” Cas said quietly.

“Sleep?”

The angel nodded and took them upstairs to Bobby’s bedroom, where he set Dean on the bed before falling onto it himself. He was asleep within minutes. Dean sat and watched him for a long time, noting the way his chest moved as he breathed and the relaxed, peaceful look that enveloped his face. He never got to see Cas this way, but he liked it. He wanted to touch Cas’ face, to feel that stubble on the palm of his hand… but he didn’t have hands. It was just another reason why Dean had to become human again.

But would Cas like it if he did that? The angel seemed to like him, hell he’d even said so, but Dean still worried. He wasn’t sure about his own feelings. Eventually, after staring at the sleeping Cas for what felt like hours, Dean curled up into his side, comforted by the warmth.

xxxx

Sam chanted Latin as he poured the lambs blood over the skull and feather and then sprinkled the sand over top of the whole concoction. It was nearly two days later and Dean had no idea what he was saying, or really even what he was doing, though he had enough cognitive thought to know that the giant was his brother and the guy in the wheelchair was named Bobby and the man who was currently standing beside him, hand protective on his back, was his angel.

Dean belonged to his angel, he knew that, but he didn’t understand what his angel was doing with these weirdos and their weird words. It was all gibberish to Dean, but his angel was keeping him sitting on the edge of the desk where everything was taking place and he resolved to stay there. He was about to say something to his angel, something like “bed” or “sleep” because he was getting really tired, but before he could even turn and blink at his angel, he felt something dark and heavy drag him into unconsciousness.

xxxx

When Dean woke, the first thing he felt were hands on his body, wrapping something around him. He slowly opened his eyes, feeling disoriented. There were three faced hovering over him, normal sized faces, and he recognized one right away. “Cas?” he whispered, throat tight.

The angel smiled down at him and held out his hand, helping him into a sitting position. He was wearing just a thin blanket and was presumably naked underneath, after all he’d lost his clothes when changing to a cat—

“I WAS A FUCKING CAT?! WHAT THE HELL GUYS?!” Dean suddenly shouted, jumping to his feet and clutching the blanket around his hips.

Sam was laughing at him and put a hand on his shoulder “Dude, calm down. You were only a cat for like five days. Plus, you’re back to normal obnoxious you now. Only downside is you can’t cuddle with Cas anymore!”

Dean glanced at Cas, mildly horrified. Cas just gave him a small, unreadable smile, which confused Dean even more. “I… I need a shower,” he finally said, calming down. He left without another word, heading upstairs where he knew some clothes would be before hitting the bathroom and letting the hot water soak his skin.

He remembered every second of being a cat, even when the cat-him couldn’t remember the human-him. He remembered saying all the things he liked, talking to Cas, being with Cas. He remembered Cas, mostly. And it was confusing.

It was still confusing when he left the bathroom half an hour later, sliding a tee shirt over his head while he walked down the hallway towards the stairs. He nearly ran into Cas, though, who was just rounding the corner of the landing.

“Sorry,” Dean muttered, moving to the side and stopping. He met Cas’ eyes and they stood there for a long moment, just looking at each other. Suddenly, Dean reached out and laid a hand on Cas’ cheek, not feeling any more confusion.

“Do you—?”

“Yeah,” Dean replied to Cas’ unfinished question. “I remember.” And then he kissed Cas, once, gently, before leaning back, rubbing a thumb across Cas’ bottom lip. “Damn I missed having opposable thumbs.”

Cas laughed at him quietly, showing off a shy, but happy, smile. “You know, Sam said you can’t cuddle any longer because you are not a cat now,” he said boldly, Dean’s hand still on his face.

“Fuck that,” Dean replied, taking his hand back only to slip his arms around Cas’ waist, pulling him in for an embrace, having already been missing the smell of rain that bounced off his body when Dean buried his nose in the angel’s neck. “Maybe being a cat is nice, but I could never do this,” he added after a moment, pulling back to capture Cas’ mouth, something he’d been wanting to do for God knows how long, but he’d never really thought about until he was in a position where he’d never be able to.

“Are you reading my mind right now?” he asked a minute later, looking into Cas’ eyes.

“My father may know, but I doubt he cares,” the angel said in reply with a smirk.

Dean just grinned and pulled Cas in for another tight hug, enjoying the feel of stubble across his cheek.

Yep. Definitely not a cat.


End file.
